Today's subject comes from a viewer suggestion.
YouTube user Kalari wonders just how big a rogue wave can get.
Rogue waves, also called monster waves, or freak waves, are the mysterious phenomenon
of a single swell on the water rising up to dangerous proportions.
They can be especially strong in stormy conditions, but a rogue wave is possible even when the
weather is favorable.
To understand why they're such a terror, consider this scene, suggested by one survivor of a
rogue wave encounter.
You're on the deck near the bow of a cruise ship, leaning over the railing on a cool but
sunny summer day in the Arctic Barents Sea.
You can just see the outline of snowy mountains along the Norwegian coast in the far distance
if you turn to look over your shoulder.
Off the ship's port side the waves are high, but the sky is clear, and the course is smooth.
Over the course of a few seconds, though, you see something strange develop.
Like a hill sprouting out from the surface of the water, one wave rises into a ridge,
as if trying to see over its neighbors, until it really sticks far out above the pack.
It begins to break into whitecaps as it nears the ship.
You realize it's time to run, and so you don't see the moment it hits, but you'll always
remember the feeling of being thrown to the deck, and seeing supplies, glass, and furniture
flying, all to the sound of a crash that seems to come from every direction at once.
It turns out the ship can handle this kind of strike, but a little notice would've helped.
You have no idea how the other passengers fared.
Even under calm conditions, waves near the shore can still reach monstrous size.
Pro surfers at beaches like Nazaré, Portugal take on swells in excess of 80 feet, thanks
to an offshore canyon that concentrates the wave energy.
But on the open ocean, the conventional wisdom used to be that the physics of wind, water,
and gravity limited ordinary waves to about 30 feet, with 50-foot waves occasionally whipping
up in the most extreme weather.
Tsunamis, which are caused by earthquakes, volcanoes, and landslides, were an exception,
with the splash height from falling rocks reaching especially high, although even tsunamis
can appear deceptively small until they approach land.
Modern earthquake detection doesn't eliminate the threat from tsunamis, but it does provide
some warning.
A rogue wave is something else entirely.
By definition, it seems not to fit the prevailing wave conditions, spiking to three to six times
the height of neighboring waves, without a clear explanation for the abrupt change.
Mathematical modeling used to emphasize the familiar uniformity of waves in a series,
predicting an outlier the size of a rogue wave anywhere in the world only once every
10,000 years.
More current models demonstrate much greater variety in wave size.
This doesn't really register much if the ocean conditions are calm to begin with, since a
single ten-foot wave among a series of five-foot waves will have no effect on a vessel of any
significant size.
On the other hand, if conditions are stormy, and the seas are already high and choppy,
an unexpected tripling, or even sextupling of wave height could be deadly.
Extreme weather, difficult working conditions, and sometimes grueling activities have always
made the lives of professional seafarers precarious.
Working in commercial shipping is the second deadliest occupation in the world, while the
most dangerous is deep sea fishing.
There are 85,000 large ships plying the waters of the world, carrying goods, resources, and
people.
On average, at least one of those vessels wrecks every two weeks.
One insurance company puts the tally much higher, at two major shipwrecks every week.
Of those, about one per year is never located, leaving the mind free to imagine all manner
of extreme explanations, both possible and fanciful, such as piracy or spontaneous levitation
into outer space.
Rogue waves were once on the list of fantastical explanations between Poseidon's wrath and
sea monster attacks, but are now well documented as one of the many hazards ships face at sea.
Only in 1995 did hard evidence of rogue waves start coming to light.
On January 1 of that year a laser sensor on the Draupner oil rig in the North Sea detected
a lone wave 85 feet tall amid a field of 39-foot waves–still huge, but well below 50% of
the standout, and far higher than the 50-foot limit such rigs were built to handle.
Then, in February, 1995, the ocean liner Queen Elizabeth II encountered a 95-foot wave, which
the captain compared to the Cliffs of Dover.
Research into rogue waves now seemed to make sense.
A 1997 analysis of an earlier body of data from Denmark's Gorn oil field uncovered a
history of 466 rogue waves in a span of 12 years.
The European Space Agency scrutinized 30,000 satellite images looking at 18 square mile
blocks of ocean over the course of three weeks in 2001.
In that time span, they discovered ten rogue waves of 82 feet or higher, some as high as
100 feet.
Their report, released in 2004, showed that while the monster waves were exceptional,
they were a lot more common that one every hundred centuries.
The data indicated that rogue waves may be especially common in areas of strong ocean
currents, such as the Agulhas current in the Indian Ocean off South Africa.
Confronted with an approaching monster wave, a ship's captain will, time permitting, steer
straight into it.
This is neither a suicidal impulse, nor an attack strategy born out of a stress-induced
delusion that the wave is a real monster, and banging it with the ship's prow is the
only chance at stopping it.
The leading tip of the ship is the angle best suited to cutting through water, whereas as
sidelong blow carries both a greater risk of structural damage and capsizing the vessel.
Don't cancel your next cruise just because of rogue waves.
When scientists say they're more common than previously believed, that's a relative statement.
Your odds of getting hit by a monster on any given cruise are still incredibly low.
Some data indicates that rogue waves actually may be getting less frequent, although the
same study shows that the strength of individual rogue waves may be increasing.
As far as records go, a little more than 100 feet seems to be about the record for rogue
wave activity.
But we've really only just begun monitoring the oceans for rogues, so that maximum is
subject to revision.
Theoretically, a rogue wave could reach almost 200 feet.
Does the ocean give you chills, or would you want to live on the high seas if you had the
chance?
Let us know what you think in the comments.
Also, be sure to check out our other video called “I Was Trapped Underwater For 3 Days.”
Thanks for watching, and, as always, don’t forget to like, share, and subscribe.
See you next time!